Laughing Out Loud

Laughing Out Loud

“No! Call the doctor. Use the emergency button on the wall. The red one. Just hit it.”

“I’m hitting it. How long do they take?”

My wife and I have just had our first baby, a boy called Laddie. Laddie Lehmann. We are hoping that he could end up fighting crime like Bruce Banner, Peter Parker or Lois Lane.

When our three kilograms of goop-covered screaming joy burst onto the scene we descended into a general state of terror.

At the hospital we were at least surrounded by health-care professionals.

When the drive home started I became a giant cliche. Fifty metres up the road we came to a speed bump and I approached it so slowly that the car inched to the top of the speed hump where it ran out of momentum and, I’m not kidding, rolled back down the speed hump. The term “kid gloves” doesn’t even do it justice. I’m pretty sure you’d see less caution from someone defusing a bomb. I think it took us about four hours to drive the three kilometres back home.

When we walked into our house with a five-day-old we looked at each other and said, “We are so unqualified for this!”

It was just me, my wife and Google! And boy, did we google everything you could possibly imagine…

When will my baby sleep through the night? (Two months prior to its birth, apparently.)

When will I sleep through the night? (Maybe never again.)

How much should my baby poo?

Why is my baby’s poo green?

How do you get poo out of the curtains?

When will my baby stop crying?

When will I stop crying?

How much wine can you drink while breastfeeding? (Not enough, apparently.)

Do I tuck his willy down or up in the nappy?

Can I even touch his willy?

Can you have sex in front of a newborn? (They say yes, but it’s still weird.)

I bumped my baby’s head on the door…where can I find a matching paint?

It goes on and on. Seven months in and we are spending less time googling, but have no idea if we are doing a good job. He sleeps more, he cries less and his poo is solid. All good progress…apparently!

» Lehmo is on Gold FM’s breakfast program, Jo and Lehmo. His new show, The Family Lifeboat, is at Melbourne International Comedy Festival 3, 10 and 17 April, and at Sydney Comedy Festival 5-7 May.